


Smiling Despite Himself

by myglassesaredirty



Series: Oh Boy, Kiddo [1]
Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Gen, I'm so tired, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tumblr request, dude so many twists could have been made in this fic, not me, someone is worthy, who is it?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-22 05:19:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12474364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myglassesaredirty/pseuds/myglassesaredirty
Summary: So, um, he could apparently lift Thor's hammer. Which was cool. He guessed. Minus, you know, the whole fact that it means he killed someone.





	Smiling Despite Himself

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr request from yttshaw: Peter can lift the hammer.

**_TEXT MESSAGE FROM: TONY STARK –_ happy’s going to pick you up from school today. I already talked to your aunt, and she’s on board with it.**

Peter grit his teeth, turning his attention from his phone screen back to the test at hand. It was pure luck that he had left his phone on silent, but that wasn’t to say that the teacher wouldn’t notice.

He held his breath and hoped that Mr. Harris wouldn’t notice.

_24\. Describe the function of a chromatin. Include terms DNA, histones, nucleosome, and chromosomes._

He held back a sigh as he scrawled on the test paper. To his left was a kid who seemed to be in complete agony; to his right was Flash, who looked as if he was begging God to just take him now.

MJ was towards the front of the room, and he knew she was going to be finished with the test in about twelve minutes.

He flipped through the rest of the test, just to check and see how many questions there were.

Forty-eight. There were forty-eight questions.

He would have a little bit of extra time after he turned it in, but still. Most of the kids wouldn’t complete the exam.

Michelle was the first to finish, turning it in with fifteen minutes before the bell. He was next, and he pulled out his calculus textbook when he returned to his seat.

He was halfway to finding the derivative when the bell rang. He tucked his phone into his pocket and zipped up his bag, mentally running through his list of assignments.

“We have to read and answer questions over Hamlet, loser,” MJ called to him over the bustle of the classroom.

He lifted his hand in a thumbs-up. “Thanks, MJ.”

“Don’t forget that essay over the Great Depression.”

He slung his backpack onto his shoulder, trailing Michelle out the door. “Thanks, MJ.” He waited until the rest of their anatomy class had dispersed in the hallway. “How was that test?”

“So easy,” she said.

“So easy,” he echoed.

“Have a good weekend, loser.”

“I will, I’m building something with Mr. Stark –”

“Didn’t ask.”

Peter clamped his lips shut, waving to MJ as he hurried out of the school building. “Have a great weekend, MJ.”

She flashed him the bird, and he laughed as he walked out of the main doors.

Happy was waiting in one of Mr. Stark’s cars, and he heard Flash’s “Penis Parker!” and he rushed to get in the car.

“Just drive, Hap,” he said, tossing his bag to the other seat.

Happy readjusted his mirrors.

“Okay, cool, safety, you can never be too safe, good thought, Happy.”

He took a drink of his coffee.

“You-you gotta stay hydrated and awake, that’s a great idea. It’s a long drive.”

He turned on the radio, turning the dial in between stations.

“Happy, come on!” He was already buckled, and outside he could see Flash pointing at the car and laughing. “Happy, he’s making fun of me, please, please, let’s just head over to the compound.”

Happy just adjusted his seat in response.

“Okay, I’m going to tell Mr. Stark how rude you’re being –”

Happy stepped on the gas pedal.

* * *

 

He bounded into the lab with all the enthusiasm of a puppy.

“Hey, Mr. Stark! I had an anatomy test today and I’m pretty sure I aced it. MJ flipped me off again today, but she looked really pretty so it’s all good. Also, Ned and I are planning to go to the midnight premiere of The Last Jedi, but tickets are expensive but he and I are saving up, so yeah…that’s all good. Also, I don’t know if this is important, but there’s some really sketchy rainbow light outside the window.”

Tony dropped his screwdriver at Peter’s last sentence, rushing up the stairs as Peter followed.

“Mr. Stark? I-I don’t mean to bug you, but, um…you promised that you’d help me build one of your suits from scratch, and I mean – I was bragging to MJ and Ned about it earlier –”

Tony raised his hand. “Yeah, we’ll get to that, kid. I promise. I’ve just gotta see which one of them it is.”

Peter stopped in his tracks, furrowing his eyebrows. “Huh?”

“Long story, kid.”

Peter came sprinting up the staircase about twenty seconds after Tony had reached the living room. “Wait, Mr. Stark. I’m-I’m coming. Goodness, you walk fast.”

Tony was silent as he walked past the Avengers’ respective rooms, Peter’s Lego sets, a stack of notes (as Peter walked by, he couldn’t tell which were his and which were Tony’s; they were all mixed in there together), and the training gym. Near the main entrance stood Thor.

“Ohmygosh,” Peter squeaked. “It’s Thor! Mr. Stark, it’s Thor, Thor’s here, Mr. Stark, Mr. Stark –”

Thor’s hair was longer than Peter remembered it being in the Battle of New York.

“Dude, look at those muscles! Like, how many are there? Hi, Mr. Thor!” He waved.

Thor lifted his hand in a wave, looking for the source of the sound.

“Over here. Behind Mr. Stark.”

Tony rolled his eyes and stepped to the side. There Peter stood, eyes wide and full of awe as he bounced from foot to foot with excitement.

“Hello…Midgardian.”

“Ohmygosh.”

“Um, Tony?” Thor seemed confused. “Who is this tiny soul?”

“I-I’m Peter. P-Peter Man. I-I mean…I’m Sp-sp…wait, no, I-I’m Peter Parker.”

“He’s so small.”

Tony quirked an eyebrow. “He’s almost as tall as me, Thor.”

“Exactly.”

Peter laughed at the look of pure hurt on Tony’s face. “Okay, wow,” he said sarcastically. “But, Thor, this is my intern, Peter Parker.”

Thor nodded once. “Excellent, Man of Iron. And, uh…what does this intern do, exactly?”

“That depends entirely on my mood. Sometimes he stops crime in New York, other times he helps me build stuff down in the lab.”

“Mr. Stark!” Peter said with a strangled voice, shooting him a glare. Through gritted teeth, he said, “Why did you tell him…you know?”

“Who’s he gonna tell, kid? Anyways, you kinda sold yourself out with the whole ‘Peter Man’ thing. For the second time.”

“Well, um…Tony, I will be here for a short time, but for now, I need to speak with Vision.”

Tony clapped his hands together and Peter jumped at the unexpected sound. “Yep. VIS, GET DOWN HERE!”

Peter simply shot him a glare. “Spidey hearing, remember?”

“Oops, yeah, sorry, kid. I’ll try not to.”

“Cool. Can I work on that thing now?”

Tony rolled his eyes as he gestured for Thor to follow him. “Yes, you can work on that thing now.”

“Yes! Thank you, Mr. Stark, you won’t regret it, I’m ALIIIIIVEEEE –”

* * *

 

Tony found Peter in the lab two hours later, a screwdriver between his teeth as he carefully attached wires to their appropriate spots. He furrowed his eyebrows and shot a glance at the monitor in front of him, where blueprints of one of Tony’s suits stood.

Tony sighed, pulling up a chair and sitting on it. Only now could he hear Peter mumbling something, and he strained his old ears to catch Peter singing “Hotel California.”

“Fan of the Eagles, huh?”

Peter looked up with wide eyes, shaking his head softly. “Mo,” he said, reaching up and pulling the screwdriver out of his mouth. “I’m not that big into football.”

Tony laughed. “No, the band. The guys who sang that song you were just singing.”

Understanding dawned on Peter’s face. “Oh, uh…kinda? Not really. I liked that song, and May loves them. Someone started playing it earlier today during class, and it just got stuck in my head.”

Tony raised a hand. “No problem. How’s Mark 97 going?”

“First of all,” Peter said, barely sparing Tony a glance as he turned his attention back to the project at hand, “if _you_ were building this guy, it would be Mark 97. But since I’m building him, it’s just Mark 1.”

“Sure thing, kid.”

Peter huffed in that typical teenager way.

“Thor’s going to be here for a couple of days,” he began, not wanting to settle into awkward silence. “I know this is the first time you’re dealing with an Asgardian, kid, so just…if he gives you alcohol from Asgard, refuse it. He doesn’t know the law down here, cuz, you know, we never really had to deal with this before.”

Peter nodded, silent as he carefully assembled the Iron Man suit. Tony had said a while ago that if he did well enough on this, he could build his own Spider-man suit.

“And before you even think about asking, no, you cannot train with him.”

In that moment, the beginning of a “But, Mr. Stark –” formed in Peter’s eyes.

“He’s bigger, stronger, and a god. He also has a hammer of doom. Really, the only person who can stand against him in a fight is Hulk.”

“You mean Dr. Banner,” Peter said flatly.

“No, I mean Hulk. Banner by himself would be flattened immediately.”

“Huh.” Peter’s tongue stuck out the corner of his mouth as he twisted the screw into place. He held up his finished product triumphantly. “Look! I got the leg done.”

Tony slapped his knee. “Good job, kid. Do that one more time and then make the rest of the body, and you’ll be good to go. Call me when you need to work on the AI.”

“Sure thing, Mr. Stark.”

 

It was close to midnight when Peter finally wandered upstairs, rubbing his eyes blearily. His jeans were hot and felt awkward, and he reminded himself to change after he got himself a little power snack.

A light in the kitchen was turned on, and he could hear the hushed whispers of Tony’s and Thor’s voices. He was too tired to hear what, specifically, they said. All he knew was that they were talking about something or other.

Tony briefly glanced Peter’s way when he plodded into the kitchen, but Thor was too preoccupied with talking about Loki’s return that he didn’t notice the teenager.

Peter sniffled and opened the refrigerator, pulling out the apple juice. He shuffled around the kitchen, awkwardly maneuvering around Thor and Tony. He grabbed a glass and shuffled back to the apple juice and poured himself some.

“Whoa there, tiger,” Tony said quietly. His voice was low, and he reached over and plucked the bottle out of Peter’s hand. “Don’t want you getting any cavities.”

Peter nodded numbly. It had been a long day. “Finished the suit,” he said finally, and his voice sounded exhausted even to his own ears. “Gotta get started on the AI.”

Tony shook his head gently, glancing at Thor, who seemed more interested in filling his daily calorie count than the conversation between him and Peter. “Not tonight, bud. You should get some rest.”

Peter sighed. “Got homework.”

“You can work on it tomorrow, Pete. Come on, bed time. Brush your teeth.”

Peter sighed again. “I gotta at least get my books.”

“Fine.”

It wasn’t something Peter even noticed, really. Something was on his history textbook; he moved it. That was all.

Thing was, that “something” happened to be Thor’s hammer.

Some part of his mind reminded him that it was, in fact, Thor’s property, and he turned, offering it out to him. He was met with both Tony and Thor staring at him in complete and utter shock.

“Wha?” he asked blearily.

“You –” Tony pointed to the object in Peter’s hand, seemingly at a loss for words. “You, uh, you lifted that.”

Thor kept looking from the hammer in Peter’s hand to Peter to Tony and back again. “I thought you said he’d never killed a person.”

Tony looked sharply at Thor. “He hasn’t.”

“What’s going on?”

The two other men ignored him. “Obviously, he has. The hammer can’t be lifted by anyone who hasn’t killed.”

“Peter’s not a killer.”

“He killed someone.”

“You’re overstepping, don’t you think?”

Somewhere in Peter’s muddled brain, a light was turned on, and he looked down at his hand. “Shit!”

“Language,” Tony said without missing a beat. “You know, Thor, maybe you’re just pissed off that someone else can hold your hammer. Maybe that’s it.”

“No, I like this child. I wouldn’t mind.”

“Then maybe you don’t know the rules as well as you thought.”

Peter opened his mouth to interrupt, but when he saw Tony’s face, he thought the better of it.

He wasn’t angry; he was scared.

His breathing was shallow, and he licked his lips every few seconds or so. His hands shook, and he balled them into fists, blinking furiously as he did so. There was fear in his eyes – guilt, too – that was so prevalent that Peter wanted to assure him it would all turn out alright.

But he wasn’t so sure.

“Mr. Stark,” he said, and it was enough to call Tony’s attention to him. He didn’t have to say more. Not that he wanted to, anyway.

“Get some rest, Pete.” Tony’s voice wasn’t disappointed or angry or anything like Peter might have imagined. It just sounded…weary. Broken, maybe.

Peter nodded his head.

He never did change out of those jeans.

* * *

 

His head was bent over his desk as he concentrated on finding the derivative when someone knocked at his door.

“Come in,” he called absently as his pencil scratched against the paper.

Tony opened the door and stepped into the room. He looked around awkwardly while he sat in one of Peter’s chairs. A heavy silence hung in the air before he finally said, “How’s it going?”

“I’ve had to restart this problem six times.”

He nodded, glancing around the room, trying to find something to look at. “You just gotta keep working until you get it.”

The silence returned, broken only by the scratching of Peter’s pencil.

“How’s, uh, how’s school going?”

“MJ and I are tied for first. And I kind of hate my history class. But it’s cool.” He breathed a sigh of relief, sitting up straight and popping his back. For a moment, he massaged his right hand before he picked up his pencil again and moved to the next problem.

“Listen, Peter –”

Peter looked up quickly, shaking his head almost imperceptibly. “I don’t want to talk about it.” His voice was strained, and he clenched his jaw tightly.

“You’ve got to say something some time, kid.”

For a moment, it looked like Peter was going to argue again. But he only sighed heavily, dropping his pencil on the desk. “I didn’t want to.”

“But you did.”

Peter nodded, looking anywhere but at Tony. “He could have hurt May. I just…I’ve lost too many people already, I can’t lose anyone else.”

The words between them were heavy, but Tony plowed on ahead despite that. “That’s not the only one, is it?”

“It was either him or them. I didn’t want it to be either, but…I-I couldn’t let that happen. Not after what he’d done.”

“It’s never easy, kid.”

Peter hit the desk, and Tony jumped. “But I never wanted to do it in the first place! I swore I would never kill anyone!”

He was crying, and Tony sighed. “I know.”

Peter wiped his eyes, and when he looked up, they were red and puffy. His breaths were uneven, and Tony realized just how young he was.

“I’m so sorry.”

Tony shook his head. “Nothing to apologize for.” He looked around the room, taking note of the textbooks scattered across the floor and the sticky notes on Peter’s desk (all written in Michelle’s handwriting) with book recommendations on them. He rubbed the back of his neck. “But, hey…on the plus side, you’re the only one who can lift Thor’s hammer.”

Peter smiled. “Yeah. Guess I can.”

He nodded once. “Now, do you need any help on your homework?”

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be fluffy and domestic, but my angst-ridden ass won't allow that.


End file.
